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Sports & Fitness vocabulary · Competition & Scoring

Personal best

Meaning in sports & fitness, with examples

/ˌpɜrsənəl ˈbest/nounCore term

In sports & fitness, personal best means: The best time, distance, weight or score an athlete has ever achieved in a particular event or exercise; often shortened to PB or PR.

In Turkish: kişisel rekor, en iyi derece

How it is used

Used in running, swimming, athletics and weightlifting. Athletes set, break or equal a personal best. British English uses PB; American English often says PR (personal record).

Example sentences

  1. She ran a personal best of 3:28 at the Istanbul Marathon.

  2. Two of our swimmers set personal bests at the national championships.

Common collocations

  • set a personal best
  • break your personal best
  • season's best
  • new PB
  • progressive overloadThe principle of gradually increasing the demands on the body, such as weight, reps or volume, so that it keeps adapting and improving.
  • marathonA long-distance running race of 42.195 kilometres (26.2 miles), usually held on roads; the word is also used for any very long event.
  • track and fieldThe group of sports that includes running races, jumping and throwing events, held on a running track and the field inside it.
  • scoreTo win a point, goal or run in a game; as a noun, the number of points each side has, as in "The score is 2–1".

More terms: Competition & Scoring

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